There`s No Stopping The Captain

Anyone who thought CBS had killed off Captain Kangaroo, when a then- expanding Morning News format finally pushed him off the air in 1984, just never knew Bob Keeshan.

Keeshan, who invented the Captain in 1955 and played him on CBS for 29 years, will be back starting Monday on more than 180 public television stations (including WPBT-Ch. 2, at 7:30 a.m.), helping to rear yet another generation of children.

``The Captain went on the air almost 32 years ago,`` said Keeshan, who always refers to his Dutch-bobbed alter ego in the third person. ``I guess he must have touched the lives of 180-190 million kids and their parents. There was no way he could quit.``

Keeshan knew that the way out of the video limbo in which he found himself would be a corporate underwriter, someone who would put him on the PBS schedule where the Captain`s talents would be appreciated. The search took 18 months, but it finally paid off this summer.

Keeshan left CBS in anger that still smoulders when the network, increasingly preoccupied with poor ratings for its Morning News, expanded the news show, buried his program in a pre-wake-up time slot and eventually shoved him completely off the Monday-Friday schedule -- an action Keeshan branded ``child abuse.``

Now, with the aid of School Zone Publishing Co., a textbook and school supply firm in Grand Haven, Mich., he will launch the second incarnation of his show this fall.

The initial shows will be edited episodes from past years, titled The Best of the Captain, Keeshan said, while he continues his search for another corporate underwriter to resume production of all-new shows, which he said ``are in the works.``

``The children I`ll be reaching this time have parents who grew up with the Captain -- my yupperoos, I call them,`` Keeshan said.

Keeshan, whose primary audience is children aged 4 to 6, is noted for the educational approach he takes on moral and social issues, with the assistance of such characters as Mr. Greenjeans, Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit, all of whom will be back with him on PBS. Three years ago, he launched an anti-smoking campaign that had children all over the nation lobbying smoking parents to quit. This time around, he said he will deal with drugs.

``You can`t really reach children of 4, 5 and 6 on the cognitive level, but you can help them develop attitudes toward things like smoking and violence,`` he said.

Keeshan, always a critic of network children`s programming, has not changed his mind, even though he still does a Saturday morning Story Break for CBS.

``Children`s television doesn`t exist in any sense on commercial network television because the government has deregulated broadcasting and broadcasters don`t have a responsibility any more,`` he said. ``They don`t worry about losing their license if they don`t serve children. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) says the marketplace will take care of children. Well, it has.

``Thank God the television show with the largest juvenile audience is The Cosby Show, which I think is great, but the second largest juvenile audience belongs to The A-Team. You win one and you lose one.``

Keeshan doesn`t necessarily approve of parents who use the television set as a baby sitter, but he said if they are going to do it, he hopes they will ``hire`` him rather than some of the more violent and commercial characters that share the tube with him.

``We have so many single-parent families and so many mothers working outside the home now,`` he said. ``Two-thirds of all mothers work outside the home. When I went on the air, only about 22 percent did.

``Television has become used, unfortunately, as a baby sitter, and I think we`ve got to provide as much as we possibly can. We`ll never be a prime source, but if the home situation is fairly decent, then I can do something.``

Keeshan, 59, has three children and four grandchildren of his own. He said he never considered retirement after leaving CBS.

``I can`t retire; there`s too much work to be done,`` he said. ``I feel terrific. I`ve got lots of enthusiasm and I love 15-hour days. Has George Burns retired yet? I`ll wait until he goes, then I`ll think about it.``

At the same time last week that Keeshan was completing the deal for the Captain`s return to the air, CBS was maneuvering its once-favored Morning News out of the picture. Keeshan refused to gloat, but he did remember.

``It is ironic,`` he said. ``I feel sorry for them on human terms, but you`ve got to be careful and not be too arrogant when you deal with human beings.``